


Gibbs' Barista

by Lyl



Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyl/pseuds/Lyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes a special kind of person to work at Gibbs' favourite Starbucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gibbs' Barista

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: OC POV!!

The early morning rush is just starting, and already Ella is ready to murder someone. Her victim of choice at the moment is the air head blonde manning the cash register, who gives dumb blondes a bad name.

“No, wait – that was a _grande_ chai latte with non-fat _organic_ milk and a _peppermint_ flavour shot,” the blonde headed bimbo calls out, ending with a giggle that could cut glass.

Ella purses her lips and tosses the beginnings of the _wrong_ drink down the drain.

“Try to find your happy place,” murmurs Kevin in her ear, reaching around her for the espresso press.

“Can I bury her in my happy place?” Kevin, typically, ignores her. He’s been working the counter at this Starbucks almost as long as she has, but has found a more Zen headspace than she ever will. At least when dealing with new hires with an IQ lower than her hourly wage.

“I swear to whatever God is listening, I’m quitting this hell soon.” Kevin continues to ignore her, like he’s been doing for the last four years.

Ella keeps one eye on the air head at cash, and goes about making up the orders as they’re slowly called. At 6am, the rush has barely started, yet the line is already out the door, and moving much slower than usual. Normally, the bottleneck happens with the baristas and not at the cash, with overachieving, self-involved individuals stridently demanding their overly pretentious caffeine fixes so they can go to whatever job they have where they are ‘the most important person ever’.

Then again, most mornings don’t have someone manning the register who can’t count back change for a five on a four thirty seven coffee.

Really. Mike needs to stop hiring people based on their cup sizes.

The job isn’t all bad, new hires notwithstanding. Their Assistant Manager, who is scheduled to work most morning shifts, is currently trying to sleep his way into a hangover, since showing up drunk a half hour ago. Again. It allows for a lot of leeway and freedom, which none of them are really complaining about. And Ella, Kevin and Shona always have a good time working – when they’re all out front.

The new girl had apparently taken exception to the way Shona kept calling her ‘New Girl’, to which Shona had replied ‘If you make it to the end of the week, then I might consider learning your name.’ Five minutes later, Blondie said something that had Shona storming into the back room in a homicidal rage, and they’d been down a cashier ever since. They’ve worked the counter with three before – though four is better - and it hadn’t been a problem then, but usually the third is moderately competent and has at least some small amount of common sense. That lack is seriously noticeable, and is promising to make the rest of the morning completely miserable.

“This should be interesting,” Ella hears Kevin whisper, glee filling his voice.

Glancing up, Ella catches sight of a very familiar grey head approaching the cash, and quickly looks back down to the drink she’s making, trying to hide her grin.

This is going to be epic.

“Coffee. Black,” comes the familiar demand.

“What kind of coffee?” asks Blondie, tacking on one of her irritating giggles that someone had probably once told her was cute, while trying to get into her pants.

Looking out of the corner of her eye, Ella watches as his eyes narrow at the sound.

“Hot. Black.”

“But what kind?” she repeats a little slower, like he’s mentally damaged. “We have several different blends – those are like flavours. And then there’s the different roasts. Today we have-“

“Coffee. In a cup. With a lid,” he interrupts, his tone conveying that _she_ is the mentally slow one in this conversation.

Beside her, Kevin tries to cover up a snort with a cough. Then, because he’s an awesome friend who totally feels her pain, calls out, “Hey, New Girl, you want to speed it up a little? If I wanted to sit around all day doing my nails, I’d go work for the FBI.”

Kevin really has a hate-on for the feds for some reason.

Turning her head a little more, Ella can see that the regular is just staring at the new girl with a look that says ‘why haven’t you brought me my coffee yet’ and ‘you better have a good excuse and it better be somebody dying’. She’s been subjected to it numerous times over the years, and has since become immune to it, but that doesn’t curtail her amusement of seeing it used on someone else.

“But what- we – blends – size – “ Blondette just starts to stutter incoherently, and Ella knows it’s only a matter of time.

A few of their other regulars are standing behind him, not even trying to hid their vindictive smiles, at both the situation and Kevin’s comment. They’re all caffeine addicts that are being denied their morning fix, and that never leads to anything good.

“Coffee. Black,” he repeates once the new girl had rambled herself into silence. “Now!” He doesn’t even raise his voice, just changes the tone to one she remembers her father was fond of using when he failed to remember his kids weren’t his recruits.

The tone seems to have done it, because no sooner has the word left his lips, than Miss Blonde C Cup bursts into tears and runs into the back room.

Kevin starts snickering before the door even closes behind her, and Ella finally looks up. Just in time to see those blue eyes pin her with the same look he’s been giving their soon-to-be-former cashier.

Ella holds up a cup of coffee in front of her like it can protect her, and walks over to the cash, just as Shona comes running from the back room, grinning.

“Ella, what did you do?” she demands, waiting expectantly for delicious new gossip. “Did you finally threaten to beat her to death with the milk frother?”

“I didn’t say a word,” Ella defends. “Take over the cash, please.” Shona takes one look at the guy on the other side of the counter, and if anything, her grin widens in delight.

“Awesome,” she says, then starts cackling in delicious glee. Ella frowns and is about to say something else, but Shona actually gets to work, so she lets it go. Turning back to the grey haired guy who has just made her morning ever so much better, she hands him his coffee like she has almost every morning for the last five years.

“We got a new blend in. I think you’ll like it,” she tells him. He looks at her suspiciously, but she waits patiently for him to take a tentative sniff, then a sip, before nodding his approval. She hasn’t steered him wrong in years, and that trust is paying off.

She knows he wants his coffee strong, dark, hot, and to actually taste like coffee – none of these flavoured coffees, or even coffees that taste like something else. Coffee should taste like coffee should taste like coffee.

Why he comes here, she really doesn’t know, because he can get better, cheaper and less pretentious coffee two blocks over, but then she wouldn’t get scenes like this morning, and that would be a shame.

He goes to pay for his overpriced caffeine and Ella stops him with a brisk hand movement.

“On the house.” At his questioning look, she explains, “For getting rid of the air head. I would have done it, but my boss threatened to cut my hours if I scared off any more newbies.”

He seems oddly amused by that, but Ella doesn’t try to decipher why.

“Ella?” he questions, as if testing the name out. At her hesitant nod, he nods back, saying, “Gibbs.”

He raises the cup in a small salute, a little smile on his face, turns and leaves.

Ella watches him go, staring after him with a small frown on her face. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she forces her mind back to work and the hundreds upon hundreds of coffees and other drinks she’ll be making before going home today.

Still, she feels a little lighter as she goes through the movements.

Gibbs. She has a name.

It only took five years.

END


	2. Hiatus Revisted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The further adventures of Ella, Gibbs' Starbucks barista.

Ella’s making her forty sixth pumpkin spice latte with non-fat organic milk when she realizes that she’s going to kill someone.

For once, it’s not the staff – everyone is trained and somewhat competent and owning of an actual personality – and it’s not the customers – just the same regular caffeine addicts as any other day. It’s not that she’s nearing thirty and still working at her college job, years after she was forced to drop out of Georgetown.

It’s not even the non-fat organic milk that’s getting to her, because they go through more non-fat organic milk than all the other milk combined, and she’s gotten used to the weird smell it makes when you steam it at a hundred degrees.

No. It’s the fact that this is her forty sixth non-fat, organic milk, pumpkin spice latte this morning, and it’s barely half past seven. She’s been counting.

It’s barely October and the pumpkin latte craze has hit the DC Starbucks crowd. Ella hates it.

Pumpkin is only good for carving and for pie. And occasionally a yummy cake with chocolate chips, but it’s the chocolate chips that make it acceptable. It should not be used to ruin perfectly good espresso and milk, no matter the season or the type of milk.

Starbucks has ruined eggnog for her, too. She has a whole ‘nother month before that monstrosity hits, so she’ll worry about it then. Right now, the pumpkin latte is the bane of her existence.

As she’s trying to decide whether stabbing someone with the thermometer or drowning them in the wash sink would be more effective, a familiar and long missed voiced grabs her attention.

“Coffee. Black.”

Looking up in surprise, Ella smiles for the first time all day at the sight of Gibbs at her counter, and she starts to make his order before it’s even been called. It may have been several months – five months, two weeks, four days – but her hands remember even if it’s taking her brain a bit to catch up.

She hears Zoe at the cash start to question him about his order, and it startles Ella for a second. Zoe may be an old hand at this, but she started working mornings after Gibbs stopped coming, so has no idea that he’s a regular.

“Zoe, I got this,” Ella calls out, hoping to forestall a confrontation. Kevin, working the other register, leans over and punches the order into Zoe’s terminal before turning back to his own. Zoe looks startled for a few seconds, but is quick to catch on and go with the flow. It’s one of the reasons why if Shona had to quit, Ella’s glad Zoe got moved up from afternoons.

Gibbs’ looks thrown for an instant, but pays and moves to the end of the counter to wait for his coffee. Ella is quick as always, and soon has his standard cup of caffeine sitting in front of him and his godawful moustache.

“Nice to see you again, Gibbs,” she says, trying desperately not to sound like the infatuated, food service worker she totally isn’t. She may have been a little depressed when he stopped coming around, but that wasn’t due to any misplaced romantic feelings.

He just reminds her of her father. Just a little bit. It has to be the military in him. She doesn’t know what service or how long ago, but she can tell a military man a mile away.

This particular military man is eyeing her and his coffee suspiciously.

“Something wrong?” she asks, frowning in confusion. It may have been more than five months, but he can’t have forgotten her completely.

He watches her through narrowed eyes for a minute, before coming to some sort of decision.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he tells her, “but have I been here before?”

Now it’s her turn to eye him suspiciously, with a healthy dose of worry added in.

“Every day, for more than five and a half years,” she tells him slowly. “Except for the past few months.”

He closes his eyes at that bit of information, and she wonders at it. Not remembering an event that occurred on a daily basis for more than five years is a cause of some concern for her. And to him as well, it seems.

He appears to come to some kind of decision, because he opens his eyes and says in a soft voice, “Had an accident a few months ago. Head injury. Lost my memory for awhile.”

Ella doesn’t know what to say to that, so doesn’t even try.

“Thought I had it all back,” he adds quietly, looking away.

“Hey,” she says, grabbing his attention. “Sounds like your brains got scrambled pretty good. It takes time for everything to fall back into place, and what doesn’t go easily requires a little nudge.”

“A nudge? Is that what I should call you?” he asks, one of his little smiles curving his mouth.

“Call me whatever you want, but just remember that I’m the one making your coffee in the mornings,” she tells him, a matching smile on her face.

“So is this what we do in the mornings? Talk?” he asks, deliberately changing the subject.

“Oh hell, no,” she laughs. “I make you a dark, hot and strong coffee, occasionally make you try new blends – which you tend to like,” she adds, “and you weed out the weak ones for me.” She finishes with a gesture over her shoulder at the rest of the staff, hoping her point gets across. By the smirk on his face, it apparently does.

“This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had,” she tells him. “In fact, I think this one beats out all the other ones combined.”

“At least I know you’re not lying,” he admits as he picks up the cup of coffee. He brings it up for his ritual sniff, then stiffens and blinks. When he looks at her, there’s something like recognition in his eyes, and a long forgotten neuroscience lecture on the neural pathways linking scent to memory comes to mind.

“Ella?” he asks, tentative and questioning.

She doesn’t know whether to be pleased that he remembers her, or irritated that he associates her existence with extra bold Sumatra. She decides on the former, and goes with the grinning course of action.

“Enjoy your coffee, you addict,” she says, waving primly at his mock glare.

“And shave off that moustache,” she calls out as he walks away, and this time the glare he shoots over his shoulder is real.

She still can’t stop grinning, and doesn’t think anything can dent her good mood.

“Grande, non-fat organic pumpkin spice latte.”

Nope. Not even that.

END


	3. Late Night Coffee Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Late night at Starbucks is not nearly as interesting as early morning. Usually.

It’s the slowest night in over a week when they walk in, loudly arguing about something that Ella doesn’t care to figure out. She’s just finished cleaning the back counter for the eighth time, after checking the stock for the morning rush, for the fifth time.

Evening shifts are so much more boring than what she’s use to.

The two guys walk up to the counter, one slightly taller, the other slightly broader, and Ella immediately pegs them both as government stooges. The flash of gold at the taller one’s hip tells her they’re feds, and that’s where she stops prying.

“Hey there,” says the taller one, who is more classically attractive than his friend. Ella mentally labels him the pretty one, and then capitalizes that when he turns a flirtatious, suggestive smile at her.

“What can I get for you?” she asks, keeping her face pleasant but unsmiling. He’s not the first customer to try and flirt with her; he’s not even the hundredth.

“Your number, for a start,” he says, giving her a long look up and down. She’s not impressed, and by the look on his face, neither is his companion.

Deliberately turning to the second one, she repeats, “What can I get for you?”

He smiles at her in amusement and approval, sends a smug grin back at Pretty Boy, before turning back to her with a genuine but polite smile on his face.

“I’ll have a triple grande sugar-free vanilla latte,” he says, deliberately ignoring the face pulled by the pretty one, pre-empting any comments with, “Shut up, Tony.”

“And I’ll have a triple shot venti coffee - _bold_,” adds Pretty Boy – Tony – with more innuendo than Ella thought he had in his entire body. He’s leaning on the counter now, his smile even more suggestive.

Added espresso in plain coffee. Ella’s lips twitch at the order, for reasons she can’t explain to anyone other than a fellow Starbucks barista, and replies, “I’m sure you are.”

The confusion on his face is kinda cute – but not that cute.

She asks if there’s anything else, and the polite one pulls out a piece of paper, which Ella takes to mean these are the coffee boys for whatever team they’re on.

“We also need a grande almond soy latte and a – geez – a 9 shot venti Americano,” the polite one reads off.

Ella has seen just about every drink combination in her six years at Starbucks, but that amount of caffeine at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night has her sending him a questioning look.

“Abby mainlines Caf-Pows all day,” he explains, and Ella figures that after a full day of that, a nine shot espresso is like a glass of warm milk. Sort of.

“Don’t forget the boss’s coffee, probie,” announces Pretty Boy, his eyes still on her apron covered chest.

“As if I could, Tony,” he replies, sounding as irritated with this Tony as Ella is starting to become. “We also need a venti coffee, the strongest you have.”

Ella rings them up then moves over to start making their order. While pulling the third of nine espresso shots, she looks over and sees a mess at one of the tables in the corner.

“Hey, Kenzie,” she calls out, pulling the second staff member from the back room where she’s been studying. “Can you go clean up the corner table?” Ella figures it’s the least the girl can do considering Ella’s let her spend the majority of her shift in the back, but still Kenzie glares at her like it’s Ella’s personal mission in life to screw her over.

Ella hasn’t worked at Starbucks for six years for nothing, and sets a look to her face that has sent stronger people than Kenzie running. It doesn’t fail her now, and the girl goes scrambling to clean up the cups and spilled coffee without a word of protest.

By the time Kenzie is done, so is Ella. She has the cups in a take away tray on the serving bar when Pretty Boy’s phone rings.

“It’s the boss,” he tells his friend before answering. “Hey Gibbs. We’re on our way out now.”

Ella hears the name and it’s automatic to slap her hand down on the drink tray as the polite one starts to pick it up.

“You work for Gibbs?” she asks, but doesn’t wait for an answer before taking back the only coffee in the bunch that could possibly be for him, dumping it out and starting a new one. Six years and she knows what he likes, unlike these two, apparently.

She’s aware of the stunned silence in her wake, but doesn’t bother to turn and explain. Gibbs is her regular and if she’s working when he gets his coffee – even if it’s by proxy – then it’s going to be _his_ coffee, the _right_ coffee.

She goes to the other end of the counter to get a piece of the banana walnut bread – because if he’s getting coffee this late at night it means he’s looking at an even later night, and he’s the type whose sole nutrition comes in caffeine form. Ella can hear some not-so-quiet whispering from the two guys, who go silent the instant she makes her way back over.

Putting the _right_ coffee into the tray, she wedges the banana bread between the various cups and looks up at them expectantly.

“You didn’t spit in it, did you?” asks a wary Tony.

“You keep talking and I’ll spit in yours,” she warns him, keeping her face free of the smile that desperately wants to overtake it. But these are Gibbs’ people, and if he handles his people like he handles some of her staff, she can have a little fun with them.

They’re looking at her hesitantly and the pretty one still has his cell phone glued to his ear. He clears his throat before asking, “Would you happen to be Ella?”

Ella takes a few seconds to blink at him, then looks down at the name tag Mike has insisted they all start wearing. Looking back up, she raises an eyebrow, silently asking if he really is this dim.

She keeps the smirk off her face at his embarrassed flush – he’d been staring at her chest long enough, yet had missed the prominent name tag – but can’t help noticing the grinning smile his companion gives her.

The quiet one really is a cutie.

“Right. Ella,” he confirms into the phone, attention drifting away from her as he listens to Gibbs. “He says he thought you quit,” adds Tony, looking back up.

“Then tell him he should start getting his lazy ass in here before eight in the morning again.” The way Pretty Boy’s face blanks, and his friend’s face pales, is incredibly satisfying to Ella.

Instead of a reply, the phone is thrust at her. “He wants to talk to you.”

“_Lazy ass?_” comes the amused query through the phone.

“Six years of coming through at six am, and now you can’t get in before eight?” she teases, smiling slightly. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed his daily coffees until they weren’t there anymore.

“_What has you leaving at eight in the morning, and working again at ten at night?_” he redirects.

“Finally decided to go back to school, finish off my degree,” she explains. “My boss lets me split my shifts, so I open and close most days.”

“_Most days?_”

“Gotta pay the bills somehow,” she says. She’s been keeping one eye on the two guys the entire time, watching as they start to elbow each other. By now, it’s escalated to a full out poking war that makes her not-so-fondly remember her brothers.

“So these two are yours?” she asks, watching as they abruptly still.

“_When I decide to claim them,_” he says, but Ella can hear the affection and pride under the words.

“You sure you want to claim them? Because I’ve got some trainees you can have that are better behaved and probably talk back less.”

He laughs in her ear and her smile widens by a degree.

“Hey, I’ve added a treat for you,” she explains, staring pointedly at Pretty Boy. “If it doesn’t make it there, blame the mouthy one.”

“_Will do,_” he says, and then she’s listening to air.

Handing the phone back over, she points to the banana bread and says, “This is for Gibbs. Don’t eat it.”

He seems to get the point, looking a little afraid for the first time.

Her job done, Ella goes to clean up behind the counter. As they head towards the exit, she hears the tall one hiss, “She’s like the Starbucks version of Gibbs.”

Ella holds on to her giggles until the door closes behind them.

Her mood is lighter and she’s that much closer to closing the place down.

The next morning, she’s not surprised to see Gibbs at her counter promptly at six demanding his coffee.

END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go [here](http://www.primermagazine.com/2008/live/you-are-what-you-drink-5-women-to-avoid-at-starbucks) to understand why Tony's drink choice was so amusing.


	4. The Other Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Problem employees, oblivious bosses and Gibbs. Just another day at Starbucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mid-season 5

Ella’s week starts out surreal – with Mike deciding at seven Monday morning that after three years he’s had enough of his assistant manager coming in drunk, and the job is now Ella’s – and gone headlong into WTF when Kevin, the founding member of the ‘I hate the FBI club’ gives his two weeks notice to go be an FBI analyst.

Now she’s looking at an order form that suggests Mike has decided that for the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, the entire staff will be forced to wear bright pink aprons and headbands with little heart antennas.

The entire staff, with the exception of Stephanie, are going to mutiny. Stephanie will probably wear hers on the subway to and from work, and well beyond the February fourteenth deadline.

Ella can’t wait to graduate and hopefully start working someplace slightly more sane. Or at least someplace that pays better.

Leaving the order form in plain view on the desk for Mike, with a post-it note saying ‘Not a chance in HELL!’ and an arrow pointing to the appropriate line, Ella makes her way out from the back office and freezes in place.

A quick glare at Zoe shows her the girl is studiously paying attention to the coffee she’s making, because Zoe knows she should not be making coffee right now. Zoe should be on cash, and Helena should be behind the bar, no matter how slow of a Saturday it is. If they had stayed where Ella had assigned them, Ella wouldn’t have to intercede in the horror show in the making at the cash.

“Helena,” Ella calls out, stopping the girl in mid shirt-pull. “Can you go get the extra bags of French Roast for the floor display?”

The customer who was about to be an unwitting viewer to Helena’s latest tattoo – and by latest, she means two days – sends Ella a look of such desperate gratitude that Ella tries to smile. She really does, but this entire situation is reminding Ella that Helena had spent the half hour before opening showing off all her newly acquired body art.

Six months down the road, when Helena’s fallen out of the goth fad, she’s going to be spending her money on a not inconsiderable amount of laser surgery. Unless Helena’s state department mother actually starts to pay attention to her seventeen year old daughter again, in which case the body art will no doubt double before Helena realizes she’s just not that into the goth lifestyle.

Ella takes over the cash quickly, giving the relieved customer a significant discount for his near-miss.

The next in line is Gibbs and – surprisingly – an older blonde woman, which makes Ella feel relieved that she’s gotten to Helena before Gibbs did. Her entire week is bizarre enough as it is.

Ella smiles in greeting, honestly happy to see him. She rarely gets to exchange more than a few words with him on any given day, so the lack of a line gives her a chance to spend a few minutes to grill him for information. Maybe even get an introduction to whoever this blonde woman is. In the six and a half years Gibbs has been coming in for coffee, he’s always come in alone. It has her curious.

“Getting an early start on your Monday morning caffeine fix, Gibbs?” she asks him, not having to fake her smile for the first time today.

“More like a late start on the Saturday morning fix,” he tells her, causing her to raise both brows. It’s almost ten in the morning, and he doesn’t strike her as the kind of guy to sleep in on the weekends.

“Well, if you hadn’t broken the coffee maker,” teases his companion, smiling.

“_I_ didn’t break the coffee maker!” Gibbs argues back, and the familiarity of the argument between them brings out a silent laugh.

“I’m pretty sure banging it against the counter until the insides are moving around on their own is breaking it, Jethro,” she says again, laughing.

“It already wasn’t working at that point. I was just making sure,” claims Gibbs, and Ella tries very hard to keep the peels of laughter from escaping, because she can picture the scene in her head. Poor decaffeinated Gibbs.

Then her mind replays the past few seconds, and a grin escapes before she can catch it. Pushing it down, she puts on her ‘yes, you _are_ the line that holds chaos at bay in our crazy, crazy world, and I am totally not making fun of you in my head for it’ face, and asks as innocently as possible, “Jethro?”

Gibbs glares at her in a way that’s totally different from his normal ‘my coffee is coming too slow’ glare, yet it still has the same effect on Ella. Which is none at all.

“I wasn’t expecting a first name for another two years, Gibbs,” Ella tells him seriously. “You’re ahead of schedule. Were you always this much of an overachiever?” She can see the smile on the blonde woman’s face, but keeps her eyes on Gibbs and his glare that has lessened somewhat, but still communicates that he’s humouring her at the moment.

Instead of replying, he makes his usual demand. “Coffee. Now.”

Ella tilts her head to the side and glances pointedly from Gibbs, to the woman and back again, raising an eyebrow in question. The request is clear, and Gibbs merely rolls his eyes before offering introductions.

“Ella, Hollis Mann. Hollis, Ella.”

Never let it be said the man couldn’t get to the heart of the matter.

“Nice to meet you,” greets Hollis, offering a hand and a rueful smile, obviously fully aware of Gibbs’ social graces. Or lack thereof. “Ella-of-the-no-last-name?”

Ella smiles back, wide and open. “Ella-of-the-he’s-never-bothered-to-ask,” she says, turning a smile on Gibbs while Hollis looks at him with reproach. Gibbs just rolls his eyes at the double teaming.

  
Before she can start the ordering process – the entire reason for their presence in Starbucks – a box is dropped purposely two inches from her foot with a loud thump. Ella’s good mood instantly vanishes, and without even bothering to turn around, calls out, “Thank you, Helena. Could you put them in the display now?” She’s using a tone most first grade teachers would use when asking why some kid just ate their jar of paste instead of their applesauce, but doesn’t care. Come Monday, Mike’s getting an earful about Helena who will hopefully be on her way out. Ella refuses to deal with this shit. If they didn’t have the Saturday rush starting in forty minutes and no one else available, she would have sent the girl home after the first tattoo stunt.

An insistent cough forces her to turn away from the cash, after sharing a commiserating look with Gibbs about problem staff.

“Yes, Helena?” Ella asks. She gets a glare and a pointed look at Helena’s defaced name tag, where the ‘en’ have been scratched out with a black sharpie.

Ella rolls her eyes in the exact way that always set that vein in her father’s forehead to pulsing dangerously, and corrects herself in the driest tone she can manage. “Sorry, _Hela_,” she says, deliberately pronouncing it ‘heel-a’, despite her insistence that it was ‘hell-a’, “Is there something about this that is confusing you?”

She gets a glare in return, and it looks like Helena is about to leave in a huff before she seems to remember herself and schools her face back into a weird mix of defiance and fake depression that she seems to think characterizes goths everywhere.

“The box is closed.”

“And?” asks Ella, because really, she’s not seeing the problem.

“I’ll need a knife to open it.”

“So get out the box cutters and go to town,” Ella advises, still not seeing whatever problem Helena is.

“But what if I’m suddenly overcome by my suicidal urges and slit my wrists?”

Ella just blinks as she takes that in, reminding herself that last month, before the black hair, black clothes, tattoos, collars, piercings and make-up, Helena was one of the more stable personalities in the place.

“I’ll take my chances.”

Apparently dissatisfied with Ella’s reaction, Helena grabs the box cutters from under the register and pulls the box of coffee beans around to the main floor area of the store, leaving Ella with Gibbs and Hollis.

“Half my staff is out with the flu,” Ella explains to Gibbs when he gives her a questioning look.

“New dress code?” he wonders with a gesture towards the corner where Helena’s working. Ella can see where he’s coming from, because even though Mike has always been relatively slack on what was considered appropriate Starbucks work wear, a leather studded collar, black leather pants and a see-through black mesh shirt that is only descent due to the green apron, is decidedly _not_ appropriate wear for anyplace outside of a sex club. Or a street corner.

“She decided a few weeks ago that she was living a lie and has since embraced the ‘darker’ side of life,” Ella explains with appropriate finger quotes. “Which she seems to think means wearing black lipstick, talking about suicide all the time and tattooing a pentagram on her ass.”

Gibbs looks alternately horrified and freaked out but covers it quickly, before muttering, “Trendy goth,” under his breath.

Ella looks at him in surprise for an instant before beaming her approval at him. “Excellent knowledge of a youth subculture, Gibbs,” she praises, laughing at his dirty look. Hollis laughs with her, though Ella gets the feeling it’s for a slightly different reason.

“So, your usual order?” Ella asks, redirecting the topic to the reason they’re in the shop and she has a job. Gibbs nods, and orders two of his regular coffees.

“Now, wait a minute, Jethro. I know what kind of coffee you drink,” Hollis forestalls, turning to Ella to alter her coffee order. “I’ll take mine with sugar. Lots of sugar.”

Ella smiles at Hollis then calls out the order to Zoe, “I need one Army and one Marine special.”

Turning back to the couple in front of her, Ella smiles at the looks on their faces that are half surprised and half suspicious.

“My brother was on leave this past week. And if you’d been in the last few days,” Ella explains pointedly to Gibbs, “you would know that he named your very special cup of caffeinated gold.”

“Oh?” he asks with a perfectly raised eyebrow that makes her remember the look her father would give her and her brothers when they tried to blame the broken punch bowl on their arthritic cat.

“He said that Marines may be in to S&amp;M as a valid lifestyle choice, but he was Army and to put some damn sugar in the coffee.”

Ella grins at the loud laugh that comes from Hollis and the rueful twist to Gibbs’ lips, as if he can’t decide if he should be amused or insulted.

A cell phone interrupts the cash exchange, as both Gibbs and Hollis pull out their electronic leashes to determine who the culprit is.

“It’s mine,” announces Hollis as she flips the phone open. A grimace is followed by an apologetic look in Gibbs’ direction before she heads outside, likely for privacy and a better signal.

“So,” Ella says with a grin. “New girlfriend?”

Gibbs sends her a dark look, “Don’t.” It just makes her smile wider.

“Come on, Gibbs. It’s good to have a social life that doesn’t involve paper cups, plastic lids and me as your caffeine dealer.”

“Just give me the coffee,” he demands. Ella can see his lips move as he tries to hold off a smile.

“And no one gets hurt?” she finishes for him, barely retraining the giggle as he rolls his eyes. Again. “Though you might end up hurting yourself if you keep rolling your eyes every time either one of us says something.”

The look she gets in response says ‘then stop saying stupid things’ more clearly than anything else.

Zoe comes over then, saving him from further teasing, and Ella makes a note to reprimand Zoe for her efficiency. She could have easily gotten another few minutes of torture in.

Gibbs grabs the cups with a mild glare at the two of them, which sends Zoe running back behind the bar, but causes Ella to tone down her grin from ‘supernova’ to simply amused. Just as he turns his back to her, Ella calls his attention back to her.

“I like her,” she tells him when he looks at her over his shoulder, adding a nod of approval.

She can almost _feel_ him rolling his eyes again, but just nods his own farewell and is out the door before she can start laughing.

The sound of coffee beans raining down on the floor pull her attention back to her problem child and the sight of three bags of premium French roast spilling out across the floor.

“Did you see that?!” accuses Helena, holding up a finger in Ella’s direction. “I almost sliced my finger off!”

Ella turned her attention back to the departing figures of Gibbs and Hollis through the windows, silently wishing them a quiet day.

Someone should have one.

END


End file.
